BAND OF SHERIFFS MAKES CLAIM TO BORDER CRIME ENFORCEMENT

EL PASO, Texas - When the Texas Border Sheriffs Coalition formed last year,
the group's goal was clear: Allow more than a dozen rural departments to
join forces for a second line of defense along the Mexican border behind
the U.S. Border Patrol.

In its first year, the coalition has gotten mixed reviews.

The sheriffs say they have been effective. But others have questioned
whether they have the training and experience to handle major drug
interdictions and complex immigration law. Gov. Rick Perry has suggested
state funding may not continue.

But with President Bush's plan to diminish local law enforcement's role and
beef up Border Patrol and National Guard presence on the border, it's not
clear what the coalition's second year will accomplish.

In its first major operation last fall, the nonprofit group caught more
than 1,000 illegal immigrants and confiscated millions of dollars worth of
drugs, Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez said.

The group also sparked two international incidents: one of its members
insisted drug smugglers using Mexican army equipment was a foreign
invasion, and in another detained a Mexican federal official and accused
him publicly of being a drug smuggler. In other incidents, coalition
members shot an unarmed suspect and have spent money on salaries and a new
Mustang car for a sheriff as well as on the high-tech equipment it needs.

Proposals for local enforcement of immigration laws have garnered
opposition from California to Georgia, with some police departments saying
that immigration enforcement needs to remain the responsibility of federal
authorities.

But the border sheriffs joined forces because local residents are the
victims of border crimes and the sheriffs are often the first to respond.
They had hoped the federal government would help their effort by approving
a $100,000 funding request, but it appears Bush's plan to add federal
agents will replace that.

The sheriff's departments are often the only local law enforcement in such
barren border counties as Hudspeth, which sprawls over 4,500 square miles
of West Texas and counts only 3,300 residents; or Zapata County, which is
closer to the heavily populated Rio Grande Valley but still has only 12,000
residents for its 1,000 square miles.

They have historically relied on the U.S. Border Patrol or Drug Enforcement
Administration to handle major drug and immigration arrests.

Overall, Gonzalez said, the sheriffs have been successful.

"Some agencies are having checkpoints; others, like here in Zapata County,
are doing surveillance of the river," Gonzalez said of operations along the
Rio Grande. "It's making an impact."

But some immigration experts question whether that's local law
enforcement's job.

Felipe D.J. Millan, an El Paso immigration attorney, worries that deputies
will try to enforce complex federal immigration laws.

"You need to let the immigration officers enforce the immigration law,"
Millan said. "I have a high degree of respect for (local law enforcement)
but by doing certain things they are putting themselves in the position of
enforcing immigration law."

Deputies raiding local hotels for illegal immigrants or operating traffic
checkpoints prove that the deputies are trying to enforce immigration laws,
said Ray Ybarra with the American Civil Liberties Union in El Paso.

Millan and Ybarra said local deputies don't know the ins and outs of
federal immigration laws - statutes that even experts describe as the most
Byzantine of the federal code.

Border Patrol agents, on the other hand, spend much of their nearly five
months of training studying immigration laws.

The group, which relies heavily on deputies working overtime, has been
funded with about $6 million in state grants. So far, each county sheriff
has been given $367,500 to spend for border security operations. Another
grant of nearly $4 million will be administered by the sheriffs coalition.

According to spending records coalition members filed with the state, many
agencies are using the grants to pay for overtime, heavy-duty vehicles,
night-vision goggles and surveillance equipment.

Hudspeth County Sheriff Arvin West bought a $22,300 Ford Mustang GT. He did
not return phone calls seeking comment.

Rick Glancey, the coalition's interim executive director, said Mustangs are
commonly used by law enforcement for "interdiction operations," helping
officers blend in with civilian traffic.

Glancey, who makes $65,533 a year as the spokesman for the El Paso County
Sheriff's Department, also has been paid more than $19,000 since December
by the coalition.

Coalition members said the proof of its efficacy is in the quantities of
drugs seized - including 2 tons of marijuana found in El Paso last week -
and arrests made.

"The reality is when you call 911, that call is going ... to a sheriff's
office," Glancey said